Summary

It's like Deanna’s been asleep for four years, traversing the highways of her life on autopilot, every joy and every pain muted and numbed. In the months since she got Sam back she's been coming to life slowly, with the pins-and-needles tingling of a deadened limb awakening. One day the music in the Impala seems to ring brighter, so Deanna turns up the volume and caterwauls along while Sam tries to stop laughing next to her. One day she remembers the vivid, manic thrill of hunting, this trial-by-fire life she's chosen, and the next time they put a spirit to rest she's grinning so recklessly that Sam tells her she looks deranged, but he sounds fond, at least. One day Deanna rolls over in her bed, sleepily expecting to see Sam across the room, and she does, and the relief of it is so strong it makes her roll back over to look up at the ceiling, weak-limbed and gasping.

And now this: Sam leaning on Deanna’s strength like she’s solid ground beneath his feet, like he's given his trust over to her again wholeheartedly. It's the final cut to the protective numb shell around her, leaving her newborn and centered.

Summary

In these coming years / Many things will change / But the way I feel / Will remain the same

The year Sam is sixteen is relatively uneventful, but for two things: a month before school starts Dad actually decides to find a house to rent for the year, and when school does start, seasoned loner Sam actually makes some friends.

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Summary

The other bed is empty again.

Dean closes his eyes. He listens through the click of the glass hitting the table again and again; through the sound of repeated refills; through the shaky exhalations of breath that seem one bare aching step from tears.

Dean will sit in teeth-gritted silence through Sam’s uncharacteristic patience by day, his quiet mourning by night, because there's nothing he can say. He can't say he's sorry. He can't pretend he wouldn't make the same decision again.

It’s in Dean’s bones: for Sam, he would make that trade a thousand times over.